March 22 – “What just happened?”

It all started when we decided to get a bit of a head start on our plans to leave town on Wednesday.  We had two days to do it.  But there were no men’s basketball tournament games on Monday, so why not get done as much as we can then?  That would leave us Tuesday to relax and pack.  Sure.  What could go wrong?

 

Our first stop was at Randall’s to top off our gas tank with gas.  It the grand scheme of things we got a pretty good deal there.  “Only” $3.77 a gallon.  Check. 

 

Next, we drove over to WalMart to pick up a few things.  We thought it would be a simple, quick, grab what we need, walk a little around the store to get in a few more steps, and check out.  Bim.  Bam.  Boom.  Back at home.  Umm.  Nope.  That’s where it happened.  Oh, the first part of our plan worked swimmingly.  Snacks in basket.  Check.  Travel size hand lotion.  Check.  Package of socks for me.  Check.  We even picked up some bottles of Gatorade for the road.  Check.  But then … we headed for the front of the store, and that’s when we realized something was horribly wrong.

 

Every single lane that was open and a line – a long line.  Now that’s not exactly unexpected, mind you.  It has been Spring Break this week and all.  But when we walked past just moments before, there were no lines.  None.  What could have happened in so short a time?

 

We ignored the situation at first.  In fact, we strolled right past and made our way to the Garden Shop.  But the register was completely shut down there.  It was eerily quiet back there, too.  Maybe too quiet.  We swung our basket around and headed back to the front.  We joined one of the self-serve lines and struck up a conversation with the person in front of us, which, by the way, I have been told is a very Texan thing to do.  Well … I like Texans.  Some of my best friends are Texans.  She hadn’t heard any reason for the delay, but all the lights over the registers in the self-serve line had suddenly begun flashing red.  Another lady told us it had been this way for about twenty minutes.  Wow.  I was majorly impressed with her patience.  Several WalMart employees walked past, but the only one who spoke told us the computers were still down in the pharmacy.  Hmm.

 

We held our ground for a long five minutes or so before Chris started making her rounds to see if things were any better further away.  Nope.  Finally we heard an employee yelling, but we couldn’t make out what she said.  Before much longer, a random guy walked past and let us in on the announcement.  “They are asking people to leave the store,” he explained.  No explanation as to why, other than “the registers are down.”  Good reason, I guess. 

 

Pretty soon we joined quite a few shoppers in a mass exodus out the door.  Good thing we left when we did, too.  They had to pry open the door to let us out.  WalMart was officially closed until further notice.  No one was being allowed in.  Those wanting out had to wait for the door to be forced open. 

 

So what just happened here?  What was the reason for the mass shut-down?  Oh, I have heard several strong possibilities since then.  Perhaps the most credible was the theory of a test attack by outer space aliens on a major earth center of commerce.  If their mini-attack worked to spread panic, then they could advance to a much higher scale of operations.  Make way more sense to me than the obvious cover story … “Computer glitch forces closure of local WalMart.”  In fact, I just read today’s newspaper.  Not even a mention of the attack.  I suppose the successful infiltration of WalMart computers, as well as the attempted mass kidnappings of unsuspecting WalMart shoppers, are just not particularly newsworthy.  Sigh.

 

Zechariah 14:9 says, “The Lord will be king over the whole earth.  On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name.”

 

Father, please help them figure out the problems over there at WalMart.  A lot of Islanders depend on that place.  Amen.